


so hallowed and so gracious

by nowrunalong



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, Female Bonding, Future Fic, Ghosts, Post-Series, Unexplained Magicks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25097011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/pseuds/nowrunalong
Summary: Buffy is wishing for a piece of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee when she enters her kitchen to find a ghost reading the newspaper.
Relationships: Anya Jenkins/Buffy Summers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	so hallowed and so gracious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



> I saw your request for Buffy, noticed "ghosts" listed in your likes, and had to write this immediately :D
> 
> This fic was inspired by a season 10 storyline in which Anya is a ghost only Xander can see. Other than borrowing that idea and having Buffy, Dawn, and Willow sharing an apartment in San Francisco, it doesn't follow the post-series comics canon with any loyalty and can be read as canon-divergent future fic.

Buffy is wishing for a piece of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee when she enters her kitchen to find a ghost reading the newspaper.

The ghost looks up. She’s standing in the middle of the table in such a way that her legs are cut off. “It’s about time you got home,” the ghost says. She tries to close the newspaper but her fingers drift right through the pages. “There’s nothing to do here. You should turn the TV on.”

Buffy stares at the ghost.

The ghost stares back.

“Stop looking at me like that.” 

“Anya? What are you doing here?” Buffy says, because Anya very much should not be standing at her kitchen table with her arms crossed indignantly over her chest like she’d never left at all.

“Hey! You can really see me!” Anya says. She seems excited. Buffy feels a little queasy. She wishes again for chocolate cake. “No one’s been able to see me! Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“How—” Buffy stops and shakes her head once.

“I mean, how am I supposed to haunt anyone if they can’t see me or hear what I’m saying? I was a demon for over a thousand years. I turned eyeballs inside out, I boiled men like lobsters, I made one man deathly allergic to cheeseburgers, and now I can’t even turn the page of a flipping newspaper! It’s degrading. And it’s boring. And I’m lonely.”

“When—why are you—”

“I was looking for you.”

“Me?”

Anya shrugs. “Well, not you specifically. You guys. I couldn’t find you.”

“I just got home,” Buffy says weakly.

“I looked everywhere,” Anya continues. “I mean, Sunnydale’s a dent in the ground now, so I figured you didn't stick around that hellhole. I went to Los Angeles because I knew some of your friends were there. Or enemies. Or ex-lovers. Whatever. I found some people that knew you, but I couldn’t make them talk to me on account of being dead and invisible. If I’d known how tedious this was, I’d have punished people by turning _them_ into incorporeal ghosts.”

“Sunnydale,” Buffy echoes. “Anya, how long have you been looking for us?”

Anya glances away—a brief gesture that betrays how bothered she really is. Buffy’s tummy still feels funny.

“Oh, a while,” Anya says vaguely.

“Have you been a ghost since…”

“A while,” Anya says again, more firmly this time.

* * *

When Dawn and Willow get home, Buffy is still in the kitchen with Anya.

“I’m going to see if I can spook them,” Anya tells her. “Those two should be easy targets. Wish me luck.” She glides backwards into the wall like she’s moving through water. It is a little spooky, Buffy thinks. Or it would be, if the kitchen weren’t so bright and if the ghost weren’t Anya.

“Hey Buffy,” Dawn says, entering the kitchen unsuspectingly like Buffy had not half an hour ago. “We brought some cake home. You want?”

“God, yes.”

“How was your day?” Willow asks, setting a cardboard box on the table. “Anything out of the ordinary happen?”

“Our entire lives are out of the ordinary,” Dawn reminds her.

“Anya is a ghost,” Buffy says. “She came back right after she died, in the crater. She’s hiding in the wall right now.”

Anya glides out of the kitchen wall with a pout. “You ruined my entrance, loser.”

“That is out of the ordinary,” Willow says, impressed. “Is she here? Anya! Are you here?”

“You people are all blind idiots.”

“They can’t see you,” Buffy says to Anya. To Willow and Dawn, she adds: “I’m the only one that can see her.”

“That’s weird,” Dawn says.

“I didn't choose this,” Anya says.

“She says she didn't choose this. She’s being grouchy.”

“You’d be grouchy, too,” Anya says. “Especially now that I finally have someone to haunt, and that someone is you, and you’re no fun at all.”

“I can ignore you, too,” Buffy tells her mildly.

Although she wouldn’t.

“Fine. Threaten the harmless ghost.”

“Maybe she’s not even Anya—maybe she’s some kind of demon spirit playing tricks on you,” Dawn says. She helps herself to a slice of cake. The corner reads “ick” in blue icing.

“Whose birthday was it this time?” Buffy asks Willow.

“Dick Pratt,” Willow says, matter-of-fact.

“I thought so.”

“Willow works in an office now,” Dawn says around a forkful of cheap icing. “That was to ghost-Anya,” she adds, when Willow gives her a weird look. “‘Cause she hasn’t been getting all our life updates lately. Probably. Unless she’s been haunting us in secret.”

“I’m not a demon spirit. And don’t call me ghost-Anya.”

“You were a demon, and now you’re a spirit,” Buffy points out.

“I gave up my demon ways. Although, I do miss them sometimes. Teleportation is a great perk. Willow would be nodding in agreement with me if she could hear what I was saying.”

“So is she going to live here with us?” Dawn asks.

“I can sleep in Buffy’s room,” Anya suggests.

“What? No.”

“Well, no one else can see me. Do you want me to sleep alone?”

Buffy serves herself up a piece of crumbly office birthday cake. Willow’s team is big enough that the cakes roll in on a regular basis, but small enough that they always have too much. Perfect balance, ‘cause she gets to reap the benefits. “You wouldn’t be alone. And you can’t bother someone who can’t hear you.”

“Am I a bother?”

“Not yet,” Buffy says good-naturedly. And then: “Really, Anya: I’m glad to see you.”

“Yeah, we’re glad you’re back!” Dawn chimes in. “If Buffy’s being mean, don’t listen to her.”

“Make yourself at home,” Willow says. “But you might wanna sleep on the couch. If…” Willow makes a thinky face. “Does she even need to sleep?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy says.

“Why would she sleep on the couch?” Dawn asks.

“Well, there’s the matter of… you know.”

“Buffy,” Anya says curiously. “Are you having sex with Spike again?”

“I am _not_ —” Buffy starts too loudly, before taking a breath. It’s not the question that bothers her, but rather the reminder that she really _isn’t_ having sex with anyone. She wishes she weren’t sleeping alone every night, but she’s been busy, and all of her existing relationships are sixteen different layers of complicated, and maybe it’s for the best that she gets some solo Buffy time right now anyway.

“Anya, it’s fine,” she says. “You can share my room. I’m the only one that uses it.”

* * *

Buffy turns the side table lamp off, plunging her room into darkness. After a moment, her eyes adjust and the glow of San Francisco traffic leaks through her curtain. 

Anya is a strange phenomenon at night. During the day, she’d just looked like herself but paler. More see-through. At night, she fades into the blackness. The window light just barely reaches her, illuminating her ghostly silhouette. If Buffy hadn’t known she was there, the sight might indeed have spooked her.

“Anya?” Buffy asks. “Can you sleep?”

She had put down some blankets on the floor. Even though Anya can’t feel them, it seemed wrong not to make some kind of gesture of accomodation. Anya’s voice drifts up from her position on the blanket-mattress. “Sort of.”

Buffy’s not sure what that means, but she doesn’t press for details.

“Have you met any other ghosts?” she asks. She wonders if Tara is still wandering the crater of Sunnydale, or her mother. The idea makes her uncomfortable.

“No,” Anya says. “Just me.”

“We’ll try to help,” Buffy tells her. “We’ll find some kind of way to—to bring you back properly. We’ve got the dynamic library duo out there. I bet Dawn’s already in research mode.”

There’s a silence between them that lingers for a few seconds. _It’s been three years_ , it says, _and nothing’s changed in that whole time._

Neither of them voices these doubts, however.

“Thanks,” Anya says simply.

* * *

Buffy wakes with a startle during the night. There’s a faintly glowing spectre at the side of her bed.

If it weren’t for the briefest traces of moonlight falling softly across her blazer, her hair, and the whites of her eyes, Anya would be invisible.

“I hate sleeping alone,” Anya says.

Buffy looks at her for a moment—takes in the shape of the darkness she occupies and the way that she seems so lonely, even though Buffy can barely see her at all—and pulls the covers back on the left side of the bed.

Anya lies down beside her. From this close, her face regains more features. She looks the same as she had the last time Buffy had seen her alive, but her eyes are tired now.

“Does Xander still miss me?”

“Yeah.”

“I miss him, sometimes. And Hallie. And Tara. And Willow and Dawn. And your mother.”

Buffy has been missing people her whole life. She’d missed her father for years. She’d missed Angel when he’d moved away, and even Cordelia, too.

Sometimes she misses people that are right beside her. She’d missed her mother when she was spending all her nights sneaking out to slay vampires. She’d missed Willow at UC Sunnydale when they’d been sharing the same dorm room.

Buffy had missed Anya, of course. But not until she was gone. Not until she could no longer hear Anya’s sarcastic remarks, her surprisingly helpful insights on demons she’d met in her thousand-year life, her naively inappropriate comments about her sex life—or, well, maybe not so much those. Point is, Anya took up a space in Buffy’s life that became dark and sad and empty in her absence.

“It’s good to have you back,” Buffy says, resting her head back down on her pillow, facing Anya.

Anya smiles tiredly at her, and Buffy hopes that she can get some rest. Not rest as in finding-peace-and-moving-on, but just finding quiet within herself.

Rest, recalibrate, return.

She lets her eyes fall closed and listens to her own breathing slow. After several minutes have passed, she cracks one eye open. Anya’s face is peaceful. She’d extended an intangible hand to cover one of Buffy’s. Her mouth, slightly parted, mimics the appearance of breathing.

Buffy looks to where their hands overlap in the same space, and wishes for the first time today that she could touch her.

* * *

Dawn’s research doesn’t yield anything concrete. The Internet is full of conspiracy theories, people claiming to be experts of the unknown, and ads promoting haunted tourism industries. She ends up spending a lot of time debunking weird articles written by fake psychics.

“Who knows. Maybe I am Buffy’s past self reincarnated in the image of a familiar face,” Anya says.

She sits in front of a bowl of Cheerios she can’t eat. Dawn had poured it for her. Buffy knows that her sister wants help, but that she can’t think of how, and that that frustrates her. If either sister did know, she would do whatever she could without question.

* * *

Willow talks to her Wicca group. Several people she reaches out to have had encounters with spirits, but not ghosts of old friends. Some give her suggestions for spells, none of which sound very promising. She tries them anyway.

“This would be so much easier if I could _see_ her,” Willow says. “Buffy, you’ll have to do it.”

She hands Buffy a ceramic teapot full of a sulfuric-smelling plant mixture. Buffy can’t even call it tea because she’s pretty sure half the ingredients aren’t edible.

In front of them, Anya sits in a filled bathtub with her arms wrapped around her knees. She’s still wearing her single ghostly outfit, the same clothes she’d been wearing when she’d died.

Xander lights candles on the bathroom counter, as per Willow’s instructions. He’d had a lot of questions, initially— _is she here, is she okay_ , frantic with emotion. After that, he’d become uncharacteristically quiet around her. Buffy can’t blame him. If the ghost were Angel and she couldn’t see him or hear him or touch him, she’d feel frustrated and helpless, too.

Buffy, Willow, and Dawn sit on the side of the tub. 

Even though it’s still just Buffy that can see her and she can’t feel the comforting heat of the water, Anya seems relaxed. Being around people clearly comforts her.

“All we need now is the symbol,” Willow says. “Buffy, you’re the vessel.”

“Is this dangerous?” Dawn asks, fascinated. She watches intently as Willow draws a circle on Buffy’s forehead with a piece of soft charcoal she’d made from burning some type of stick earlier. “‘Cause it kinda sounds like you’re inviting Anya’s ghost to possess Buffy.”

“That’s not it,” Buffy says quickly. She turns to Willow for reassurance. “Right, Will?”

“Yeah, this is more of an invitation to, uh—to invite Anya’s spirit to come forth more physically into this plane of existence. Buffy is a vessel that is already complete. Anya can’t take over her body because Buffy is already Buffy. The bathtub is also a complete vessel—the physical presence of the water around Anya should prevent her from drifting. Basically, Buffy should be able to act as a guide if she’s able to connect with Anya on the spiritual plane.”

“So—now?” Buffy asks.

“Now,” Willow says.

Buffy pours the teapot of undrinkable plant juice through the top of Anya’s head.

“Vivet,” Willow intones next to her. “Videre.” 

“This would be kind of sexy if I were alive,” Anya says, rolling her shoulders and tilting her head back like she’s relaxing in the shower.

“Keep your head straight. I don’t want to pour yarrow root up your nose.”

“This spell is so putrid I can almost smell it. Reminds me of my demon days.”

“Is anything happening?” Dawn asks.

Behind them, Xander’s fingers drum impatiently against the counter.

“No,” Buffy admits.

“Don’t tell them that,” Anya says chidingly. “This is fun! Let’s keep going. Ask Willow to make another batch of this disgusting tea.”

Buffy gives the teapot a wiggle as she drains the last of the liquid from the soggy mass of leaves inside. “I’m not doing this again. Will, how come these life spells never have yummy smells like peppermint? This is the worst one yet.”

“And now Anya’s sitting in stinky tea soup,” Dawn adds.

Willow looks sadly at the bathtub. “Sandra’s spells are only reliable about half the time, but when they do work, they’re usually really good! I mean, the idea of a really strong odor activating the—okay, yeah, I did kinda worry this one would be a dud. I’m sorry, Anya.” 

Anya is still hugging her knees. Even without the spell-water soaking through her clothes and making them cling to her skin, she looks very small all of a sudden.

“We’ll figure it out,” Buffy says. The bathroom acoustics amplify her voice; the sound of certainty in her own words makes her more sure of herself.

* * *

“I’m glad you’re the one who can see me,” Anya says, lying next to Buffy on her bed. With the table lamp on, she still looks corporeal. Buffy fingers itch to reach for her.

Buffy sets down the magazine she isn’t really reading. She’d found that if she tries to read before bed, Anya will sit beside her and read over her shoulder.

She brings all sorts of articles to bed, just to see what Anya might find interesting. Xander’s carpentry magazine with a feature on different types of hammers. (“The sledge hammer gets all the horror movie glorification, but I’ve had good results with all of these.”) Dawn’s college paper on the history of witchcraft in literature. (“It all gets swept up into this category of occult fiction, but most of the old literary works your sister references are true accounts of demons. Of course, if someone is completely over the moon about Beelzebub’s dick, it might have been written by a demon to begin with. Or it’s just some human who was really horny for the devil. They’ve always been around.”) A pamphlet about hair dyes she’d picked up at the salon. (“You should dye your hair green. You’d look ridiculous. Please do it.”)

“I thought I was no fun,” Buffy says, smiling.

“Well, you’re usually not. But I don’t care about that anymore. If it was Xander, he’d get weird. He’d probably try to figure it all on his own and not tell anyone else about me. Willow would drive me nuts. Dawn would ask me at least two hundred questions a day. You make me feel like I’m a part of the Scooby Gang again.”

“You are a part of the Scooby Gang.”

“I’m dead,” Anya says.

“But you’re here.”

Even though neither of them can feel it, Anya leans into Buffy’s shoulder. “You don’t have to keep trying.” Because she’s Anya, she looks Buffy right in the face as she says it. Their noses are only a few inches apart. “Whatever I am will be resolved somehow by the same cosmic forces that brought me to you.”

“I don’t want you to ‘resolve’,” Buffy says. “I want you to be here. I want you to be here _more_.”

The more she says it, the more she realizes it’s true. She loves spending time with Anya. The woman had spent a thousand years exacting vengeance, but it wasn’t for the sake of imposing judgment. It was never about judgment. It was about vengeance. It was about chaos.

It was about granting wishes.

Out of nowhere, Buffy thinks of chocolate cake.

“Anya,” she says suddenly, “I want to try that spell again.”

* * *

“Buffy, it’s one in the morning,” Xander says, rubbing bleary eyes with the back of his hand.

“I think I can help her. Xander, please.”

Xander steps aside to let Buffy into his apartment before closing the door behind her with a yawn. He’s wearing boxers and a white t-shirt. Buffy had woken him, but she’s too fired up to feel badly about it.

“Is she here?” Xander asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure it will work?”

Buffy just looks at him. She can never be sure about this sort of thing. Xander knows that, but he’s tired of being disappointed.

Well, so is Buffy. Doesn’t mean she’ll stop trying, though.

She waits in the front entrance as Xander goes to retrieve something from his room. He returns with a small cardboard box and hands it wordlessly to her.

He looks so vulnerable tonight. The light from his room reaches down the hallway from behind him, casting even deeper shadows beneath his eyes. Buffy does feel a little guilty, then, to have disturbed his sleep. She thinks he must not be getting much of it.

She gives him a hug: it’s ‘thank you’ and ‘I care about you’ and ‘please get some rest’ wrapped up in one quick gesture.

“Just don’t lose it,” he says.

* * *

Buffy lights candles in the bathroom while Anya gets comfy in the bathtub again.

“I wish I could take this off,” Anya says, fidgeting with her blazer. “It ruins the mood.”

“What happens if you try?”

“It just reappears. It’s ridiculous. I once removed my clothing twenty times in a row, to no avail. I’m doomed to be fully clothed.”

“I won’t ask where you were,” Buffy says, placing an incense burner she’d borrowed from Willow’s room next to the tub. She frowns pensively for a moment. “I think this might work better if I sit in there with you.”

“Are you going to keep your clothes on too? You don’t have to.”

Buffy had thrown a jacket on to go to Xander’s. She takes it off, revealing a white t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She leaves those on.

Climbing into a tub otherwise occupied by an incorporeal ghost is a strange experience. Buffy tries not to sit where Anya is sitting, but it’s hard not to let their limbs overlap. She draws her knees up to her chest, mirroring Anya’s pose.

Next, she removes two items from her pocket and sets them on the side of the tub.

Beside Anya, she places the ring Xander had bought for his wedding and then never worn. On her own side, she places her Claddagh ring. Willow had drawn a circle symbol before, but the rings feel much more personal. 

Anya appraises Buffy’s chosen objects.

“They both left,” she says.

Buffy leans carefully over the side of the tub. “They thought they were doing what was best for us.”

“But they never asked us what we wanted.”

“Are you still mad at him?” Buffy asks.

“No.” Anya looks at the ring. “A little.”

“It was different with Angel,” Buffy says. “We were… I mean, I was only in high school. Maybe he was right—I didn't know what I wanted in the long run. I still don’t really know. At the time, I just wanted a date to the prom.”

Anya smiles. “I don’t know what I want either. We can figure it out together.”

Buffy uses a match to light a stick of incense next to the bathtub. “That sounds good,” she says. She blows gently on the incense stick until the flame goes out and it’s glowing red, fragrant smoke trailing up toward the bathroom vents, before drawing her arm back inside the tub and crossing her arms over her knees.

“Vivet,” she says, closing her eyes. “Videre.”

* * *

“I don’t miss the desert,” Anya says, standing in the middle of it.

Buffy looks around. The landscape is familiar. The slope of the ground; the rocks that dot their path; the scruffy trees and grasses that cover the lower-lying areas, reaching deep underground for water.

Anya would have had to walk for a long time in landscapes like this to get to LA.

“I’ve been here before,” Buffy says. “With a big cat. And… Tara, I think. That part’s kinda fuzzy.”

“We’ve left your physical plane.”

“So… what now?”

“I follow you back.”

“That sounds easy,” Buffy says, because it does, although it also doesn’t make much sense to her.

Anya comes to stand at her side.

“I understand what Willow was saying now. You have to be my guide.”

Her shoulder brushes Buffy’s as they stand together, so softly that neither of them reacts for a split-second. Then—

“Oh!” Anya says, delighted, as Buffy turns to face her with wide eyes. “Buffy! I can touch you here! That sounded better in my head. You know what I mean.”

She reaches out and places her hand against Buffy’s upper arm.

“This feels—” Anya says, trailing off without finishing her thought. She’s still smiling, but it’s a smile Buffy has never seen before. “I was so alone. And now I’m with you.”

Buffy returns her touch slowly, like she’s moving through water. Her fingers connect with Anya’s shoulder one-by-one. Anya is still wearing that goddamn grey blazer. Buffy’s thumb slides under the collar and pulls, gently. She’s not sure what she’s trying to achieve. Her tummy is doing flips.

“You know what makes no sense,” she says, “is that right now _neither_ of us are physical presences.” 

Anya shrugs the blazer off and smiles brilliantly as it lands on the sandy ground and stays there. She’s wearing a pink t-shirt with a sequined collar beneath it. “It makes no sense,” she agrees happily. “Oh, I feel so much lighter. Look at me! I’m pink now!”

“Anya,” Buffy says. She’s not sure what else to add. The material of Anya’s shirt is soft against her fingers. Sunshine illuminates her skin. She looks so real, so not-ghost-y, that Buffy just wants to… wants to… 

“I want to kiss you,” Anya tells her, resplendent in her pink shirt and newfound joy.

“Okay,” Buffy agrees, because she wants that too.

Kissing Anya engages every part of her. Her hands are on Anya’s back, holding her close, chest-to-chest, reassuring her that she’s here, real and some kind of alive. Anya’s fingers lace through her hair, surprisingly gentle as she kisses Buffy with open-mouthed enthusiasm. Buffy’s heart is pounding. She can’t let go. She doesn’t know what will happen if—

Anya pulls away.

She leaves her arms around Buffy’s neck. Her cheeks are flushed. Buffy wants to kiss her again.

“We can’t stay here,” Anya tells. “Or, you can’t. I’m still dead. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re coming back with me. I think I know how.”

Anya slides her fingers down Buffy’s arms to grab onto both of her hands.

“That’s good,” Anya says. She smiles, and Buffy’s all the more sure. 

It’s time to wake up.

Buffy makes a wish and opens her eyes.

* * *

She hits her arm on the metal tub as she wakes with a start. Water sloshes over the side and extinguishes the incense. A fist pounds on the door.

“Buffy?” Dawn is saying. “Buffy, I’m coming in, okay?”

Anya is standing up, peering around at the door.

“Oh my god,” Dawn says.

“What is it?” Willow says, from behind her.

“Oh my god ohmygod ohmygod!” Dawn claps her hands and does a little jump, gleeful. “Anya! I can see you!”

“Buffy—you did it!” Willow says, awed. “You little minx. You tinkered with the spell! You have to tell me all about it later. Anya… oh my goddess, it’s good to see you!”

Buffy frowns as she looks straight ahead of her. Anya is still standing in the bathtub. The water partially obscures her shoes and pant legs where they’re submerged, but—

But the material isn’t wet. It isn’t touching the water at all. Anya still isn’t here.

Dawn realizes the same thing a moment later when she runs to give Anya a hug and her arms pass right through her midriff.

“Uh… Buffy?”

Buffy looks at Anya.

“It’s okay,” Anya tells Buffy. Her expression is calm.

“You knew this would happen,” Buffy realizes.

“This is as much as I can be in the physical world.”

“But…” Buffy says, shaking her head as she tries to understand. “You were going to come back. I _wished_ for it. Like I wished to—to not sleep alone, and to get to actually touch you, and—and chocolate cake!” 

“No one’s granting wishes, Buffy,” Anya says.

“I wished for you back,” Buffy says again.

Anya smiles. “You brought me back to my friends.”

“And you can totally still live with us!” Dawn says enthusiastically. “I’m going to phone Xander right now. He’s gonna be so happy.”

Buffy stands up. Her shorts and t-shirt stick uncomfortably to her skin. Willow hands her a towel, and Buffy uses it to dry her arms and legs.

“I’m going to get changed,” she says to Willow.

“Don’t think you can get away with not telling me about whatever’s going on between you and Anya later!” Willow calls after her delightedly.

“You’re leaving wet footprints,” Anya says, conversational, as she follows Buffy out the door. “I take comfort in knowing that of the two of us, you’re definitely the worse housemate.”

Buffy stops to face Anya in the doorway of her room. She’s wearing the pink sequined t-shirt. “The blazer didn't come back,” Buffy says. “How?”

Anya sits down on the side of Buffy’s bed. The lights are still off, but she looks—she looks like a person, now. Not a ghost at all. She smiles as Buffy closes the door behind her.

“Maybe I made a wish.”


End file.
